Shiny, Sparkly Things
by Omnicat
Summary: He makes her feel like a greedy little magpie. / Amber x Hei


**Title:** Shiny, Sparkly Things

**Author:** Omnicat

**Unofficially Adapted From:** Tensai Okamura's _Darker than BLACK_

**Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** All of the above.

**Warnings:** None worse than for the series itself.

**Characters & Pairings:** Amber x Hei

**Summary:** He makes her feel like a greedy little magpie. / Amber x Hei

**Author's Note:** Set during their time in South America. Enjoy!

**II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

**Shiny, Sparkly Things**

Hei was _different_.

Pai knew it, Amber knew it, the big bosses up in the Syndicate's ranks who read the reports on his exploits knew it. The Contractors in opposing teams hardly ever seemed to notice, but then they usually didn't live long enough after meeting him to notice much of anything.

And Amber found herself _pitying_ them for it.

She almost pitied herself too, sometimes.

When Hei killed, he was human nor Contractor. He was a personification of death, the black reaper made flesh. He draped the wire around his victims' necks as if it were a pearl necklace, buried his blades in their bodies like a lover sheathed himself in his loved one. But in return for that one moment of scorching intimacy, they forfeited the chance to bask, like Amber, in the eternal glow he emitted.

Surely, the butterflies in her stomach whispered whenever she watched him do it, a swift death would be a fair price to feel that touch, even if it meant never again to admire the incandescence that drew her to him in the first place. The irony of it did not escape Amber, and she often turned the thought around and around in her mind, like a magpie admiring the shiny trinkets in its nest.

Tracing the desire to its roots uncovered even more treasures. Admiration for exceptional skill and well-trained physique in dark spandex were strange to humans nor Contractors, but the context of the current massacres stirred distant, hazy memories of shock and dismay that made her knees weak and her stomach queasy.

And again, the little magpie Hei awoke in her was enchanted by her body's gut reactions, treasured every glimpse of it. Though glad her team had the boy for themselves, Amber simply could not help but pity all those others who never got to see past the surface that said 'enemy; don't think, kill'.

On first glance, there wasn't anything special about Hei. Plain black hair, sullen Asian features, a lanky but well-toned body that stood out in no way amidst all the other well-toned bodies of South America's mercenaries, and moved with the powerful and stealthy grace own to all those who had survived the jungle so far. Those who had heard the rumours of the living legend of the black death easily overlooked what was right in front of them until it was too late.

His skills were certainly above average; with only wires, knives, and his bare hands, he'd gained and kept the upper hand in this war, in this sub-tropical arena in which countless Contractors applied the full range of their amazing powers for the sole purpose of destruction. But surrounded by men and women who killed with practiced ease, like it was nothing to take the life of another sentient being, that wasn't what made Hei stand out to Amber.

Hei was like a beacon. Even the death he dealt out and the blood he left in his wake was bathed in a brilliant shine, casting shades of light and dark and ringing with a clarity that was absent from the dull, flat drone that made up the rest of the world.

Pai, the well from which all this passion sprung and the basin in which it gathered, was one lucky girl. He killed for her and cared for her. Amber found her almost as fascinating as her brother.

Hei's life meant something; to himself, to his sister, to Amber, to the suits that oversaw his paper-and-ink contract, even to the opponents who were lucky enough to get to face him more than once. And the lives of others meant something to him in return. He saw something beyond the chemical processes that made up the scientific definition of 'life', saw more, even, than the primitive struggle for survival for the sake of survival, the hyper-rationally primitive state of mind that the Contractors around him had referred to in exchange for their wondrous powers.

For all the miracles surrounding her, only Hei qualified for Amber's definition of the word.

It really were his eyes that did the trick. Those eyes that looked at humanity's most barren, futile nature, stripped of all illusion and pretence, and could still see the twinkling of the stars that guided them.

Neither hard to shake inner emotions nor any pressure from social mores could stop a Contractor from schooling their features into any expression they wished to project, but their eyes were always dull and lifeless. Hei, in turn, continuously struggled to keep a mask of indifference on his face even while he killed without hesitation. His eyes were like mirrors. Clear enough that Amber imagined she could see herself reflected in them, and that the emotions in them were her own.

That _she_ could _feel_.

One-eye in the land of the blind. And Amber wanted nothing more than to follow him, even if he didn't lead her anywhere. Even if he was stumbling in circles himself, not knowing where to turn to, struggling harder to keep his eyes open the longer he wandered among the blindfolded.

Impractical, illogical, un-Contractor-like as it was, Amber wanted to stare into Hei's eyes all day long, wanted him to touch her, wanted to see life the way he did, wanted to touch _him_. He made the whole world feel different just by being in it.

One day, when the fights reached their peak and the closure of Heaven's Gate was fast approaching, she used her power to stop time and steal a kiss from him, hoping that the magic of that ancient gesture might transform her from a magpie who had to steal other people's trinkets into a bright, shining creature like Hei.

It didn't happen.

Inside the mist of her Contract he was as dead as the eyes of a Contractor and as meaningless as the myriad deaths on her name. When time resumed its course, taking some of her age with it, Hei's eyes reflected nothing. The whirlwind of love and pain inside her was nowhere to be found in him.

She felt hurt. Stupid. Betrayed. Guilty. Embarrassed. Disgusted. Scared. Concerned, most of all.

She _felt_.

That was the moment Amber realised that soaking up the warmth and light he emanated wasn't enough. That somewhere along the way, she'd started to behave in ways meant to instigate a reflection in his eyes. That his touch was no longer worth it for her to lose his glow over. That standing by idly while he lost that precious vision was no longer an option. That her own killing and caring had gained a purpose.

She wouldn't be satisfied until she could affect him the same way he affected her. Not until _he_ kissed _her_.

**II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

**PSAN: **This is a repost, so if it looks familiar, yes, you've probably read this before in a different context.


End file.
